High Rise St Kilda Road 1986

This ‘Pop version of a Mies van der Rohe building’ (the apt description used in Spray) was first shown in HA Tolarno 9/86.

The motif of the sun glinting off the glass wall derives from an illustration earmarked in a book in Arkley’s library (Joseph Deken, Computer Images: State of the Art, London: Thames & Hudson, 1983, p.103: image by Michael Collery). For comments on this source, see Gregory, Eyeline (2001), also mentioning parallels with the novels of J.G.Ballard, one of Arkley’s favourite writers; Ballard’s High-rise (1975) may have inspired the title of Arkley’s composition.